“Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.”

I think that to transfuse emotion – not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader’s sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer – is the peculiar function of poetry.

Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.

Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

White in the moon the long road lies.

On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover; Breath’s aware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey’s over then there’ll be time enough to sleep.

The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me.

There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.

The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.

Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.

This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they’re in trouble And I am not.

Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.

I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.

The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers’ meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.

But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.